damonparker.org » Microsoft / Windows http://damonparker.org code / ecommerce / life Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:33:17 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0-RC3 Outlook Express Uses 100% CPU http://damonparker.org/blog/2007/06/26/outlook-express-uses-100-cpu/ http://damonparker.org/blog/2007/06/26/outlook-express-uses-100-cpu/#comments Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:22:47 +0000 damonp http://damonparker.org/blog/2007/06/26/outlook-express/

Windows users, please don’t use the Inbox in Outlook Express as a repository to store years of mail. I was recently called out to a client’s site to debug several email issues. Errors sending mail, errors receiving mail, this folder cannot be displayed.

After Googling a few of the error messages I found most of the fixes were directed at cleaning and rebuilding the Outlook Express default folders (Inbox, Sent Items, Deleted Items).

The basic steps are:

  1. Close Outlook Express 6
  2. Create a folder c:\temp (if it is not already there).
  3. Copy the contents of my “C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{YOUR_IDENTITY_STRING}\Microsoft\Outlook Express” to c:\temp
  4. Rename C:\Documents and Settings\{YOUR_IDENTITY_STRING}\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{YOUR_IDENTITY_STRING}\Microsoft\Outlook Express\inbox.dbx to inbox-old.dbx
  5. Open Outlook Express. It will create an empty Inbox and will show only one message “Welcome to Outlook Express 6″
  6. From the menu, open File->Import->Messages Choose Outlook Express
  7. Click Next
  8. Choose Import mail from an Outlook Express Identity and select your identity (Main Identity is the default)
  9. Click OK
  10. Browse to the folder c:\temp
  11. Click Next
  12. Choose Inbox
  13. Click Next
  14. Messages from your Inbox will be imported and appear in your new Inbox
  15. Click Finished

More information about the file corruption may be found at Microsoft.com

]]> http://damonparker.org/blog/2007/06/26/outlook-express-uses-100-cpu/feed/ 1 Network Printing from a Mac to XP http://damonparker.org/blog/2007/06/06/network-printing-from-a-mac-to-xp/ http://damonparker.org/blog/2007/06/06/network-printing-from-a-mac-to-xp/#comments Wed, 06 Jun 2007 17:24:48 +0000 damonp http://damonparker.org/blog/2007/06/06/network-printing-from-a-mac-to-xp/

I purchased a ‘free’ (with rebates) HP printer with my last MacBook last month. I had originally intended to list it on Ebay with a ton of other tech junk I need out of my house. This hadn’t happened and my MacBook still didn’t have a printer available to it (can’t find OS X drivers for my old Epson Actionlaser workhorse), so I thought I’d hook it up.

Network printing seemed to be the best option since the MacBook may be wireless anywhere in my house. The only permanently connected (and non-laptop) box I have is an aging XP machine. Setting up a printer on it and allowing network access to my workgroup should be a snap, or so I thought. Boy, was I wrong.

Long story, short… I was able to install the printer locally only. I was able to work around OS X’s undocumented feature to access the advanced printing properties with the help of a few pages from Google. Namely from Erik J. Heels’ blog. Using his howto, I got the printer connection up, but all of my prints were garbage on account of no available driver for my specific printer being available. The HP setup disk did install a driver that I could use locally but the new driver is not showing up under available drivers when setting up the printer via Samba.

It is interesting that in this instance Windows is more user-friendly than good ‘ol Apple. Why doesn’t the new printer driver get added to the overall driver list as in all Windows versions since 95? Why are the advanced printer settings hidden and undocumented in OS X?

Anyone know where the printer drivers are actually installed so I could manually select the file?

]]> http://damonparker.org/blog/2007/06/06/network-printing-from-a-mac-to-xp/feed/ 0 Convert Mac Line Endings http://damonparker.org/blog/2006/01/05/convert-mac-line-endings/ http://damonparker.org/blog/2006/01/05/convert-mac-line-endings/#comments Thu, 05 Jan 2006 16:02:59 +0000 damonp http://damonparker.org/blog/?p=165

I wasted an hour last week messing with a CSV file I was massaging data in for import into a large SQL database only to find out the reason the import kept dying was because of the Mac line endings. There are many shell script, Perl scripts and shell one liners to convert line endings but I found a program called flip available for OSX, WinXP and Linux that can convert between all three.

Usage: flip [-t|-u|-d|-m] filename[s]
Converts ASCII files between Unix, MS-DOS/Windows, or Macintosh newline formats

Options:
-u = convert file(s) to Unix newline format (newline)
-d = convert file(s) to MS-DOS/Windows newline format (linefeed + newline)
-m = convert file(s) to Macintosh newline format (linefeed)
-t = display current file type, no file modifications

They are linked here locally as well:

]]> http://damonparker.org/blog/2006/01/05/convert-mac-line-endings/feed/ 1 Microsoft Promotes Safari http://damonparker.org/blog/2006/01/03/microsoft-promotes-safari/ http://damonparker.org/blog/2006/01/03/microsoft-promotes-safari/#comments Tue, 03 Jan 2006 23:53:39 +0000 damonp http://damonparker.org/blog/2006/01/03/microsoft-promotes-safari/

Internet Explorer on Mac reaches end of life with the close of 2005. Microsoft says migrate to a real browser like Safari.

Internet Explorer 5 for Mac

I’m sure this is old news, I just thought it was pretty funny.

]]> http://damonparker.org/blog/2006/01/03/microsoft-promotes-safari/feed/ 0